(2003-12-09) Rosen Dean Arendt Jefferson

In a piece about Howard Dean and the Internet-restructuring of the PresidentialElections process, Jay Rosen notes: Thomas Jefferson's understanding of freedom included what Hannah Arendt calls "public freedom" - the citizen's right to share in the direction of society and the discussion of common affairs. This is why, late in life, he placed so much emphasis on dividing all the counties and parishes of the states into smaller units (SmallWorld), which he called wards. About this famous flourish in Jefferson's thought, Arendt says: The basic assumption of the Ward System, whether Jefferson knew it or not, was that no one could be called happy without his share in public HappIness, that no one could be called free without his experience in public Freedom, and that no one could be called either happy of free without participating, and having a share, in public power.